There's no need to bring this puritanical nonsense into the classroom.

Any good high school teacher should be able to say "you guys need to get your shit together" in good conscience. If, on the other hand, a genuinely bad teacher is abusive towards students, this is a job for the parents and school administration to handle rationally.

There are already enough rules handed down to schools by politicized bureaucracies to make education a nightmare, why add to the burden with further insanity from the FCC?

You can already say "Shit" on TV if I recall, this sounds more like a back door attempt to stop proper sex education in favor of abstinence only propaganda.

There's no need to bring this puritanical nonsense into the classroom.

Any good high school teacher should be able to say "you guys need to get your shit together" in good conscience. If, on the other hand, a genuinely bad teacher is abusive towards students, this is a job for the parents and school administration to handle rationally.

There are already enough rules handed down to schools by politicized bureaucracies to make education a nightmare, why add to the burden with further insanity from the FCC?

I'm from Arizona, born there and lived there for over 40 years before I got married and moved away. Personally, I really hope this law passes and you start seeing the quality of the education system (debatable though that is) decline rapidly as teachers move away. I think it's going to take crap like this to actually break the government system before we get rid of the idiots now in charge.

I really don't know where Arizona rates in terms of public education. I'm thinking more in terms of university teachers who are not tenured, which is a whole issue unto itself, leaving. But it certainly would apply to primary and secondary. I thought the Arizona universities were reasonably good, and U of A has a fairly respected astronomy department, but I'm not really informed in that area.

For example quit promoting the good teachers out of positions where they can actually help students.

that doesn't happen in my state (NC).. good teachers just stay where they are with zero reward.. and the bad ones.. well if they have tenure stay too.. OR along with bad principals.. get moved to "central office" where they don't have interaction with students..

Arizona is the worst of the worst; that being, the worst of the US. They feel no need to respect human rights: they still use forced labor in dangerous conditions, have concentration-camp style prisons, and racially profile anyone who might be "illegal" (effectively giving police probable cause to stop and search anyone not white). The state needs sanctioned by the UN, right after being ejected from the union.

You can already say "Shit" on TV if I recall, this sounds more like a back door attempt to stop proper sex education in favor of abstinence only propaganda.

That was my thought too, but it doesn't seem very targetted. It would make sex education difficult and dangerous to teach, even if you follow the rules, but really all it's doing is inviting angry parents to complain about teachers they don't like.

I immediately thought of George Carlin and his 7 words routine. I did an internet search and found it on youtube. I know I have not watched it in a while but now it states that I have to sign up to verify that I am over 18 to watch it. This is insanity as I would think that this video would be almost mandatory for young children to watch. It presents a very rational discussion of the 7 words. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3D3_Nrp7cj_tM [youtube.com]. I looked at it and decided it was not worth having to attempt to prove I am over 18 to watch it as I have already seen it several times. He asks why we invent a word and than decide it is not appropriate to say? He also says there are no dirty word but just dirty thoughts that those word bring to our minds.

He asks why we invent a word and than decide it is not appropriate to say?

History.

Most (but not all) of our 'dirty words' today were regular anglo-saxon English words prior to the Norman invasion of 1066. After the Norman conquest the elites spoke French while commoners continued to speak English. Over time the elites were assimilated into the English speaking community (similar to how China keeps assimilating their conquerors over and over again (e.g. the Mongols, the Manchu)). But this separation that existed and how the elites adopted English leaves a lot of relics in our lang

'Proper people' would use French-descended terms brought into English. Essentially it was a form of 'class war' in which the elites may have adopted English but they rendered older English vocabulary of the lower classes into something unacceptable.

And of course, a lot of the time those "proper" words are in fact themselves slang imported from other languages. Eg. penis. This is a latin word meaning tail. What makes it any more acceptable than saying bollocks is a mystery to me.

Hmmm... my manager curses occasionally. Generally only when something especially annoying happens -- e.g. her manager has an accident, and she has to cover for him.

But one of my colleagues says "fuck" as much as some people say "like". "I was, like, arguing with the other guys on the project, like, and they were like, 'Let's do it this way'." becomes, "Fuck, I was arguing with the other guys on the fucking project, and they fucking said 'Let's fucking do it this way'". It's very unprofessional, and I fin

"Fuck" is a manly discourse particle. "Like" or "hey" are chirpy words more suitable for the vocal cords of little boys and girls. Direct speech would of course be preferable, but conversation requires a little flair.

I agree. In fact, this does not go even nearly far enough. All public employees should be prohibited from cursing in public. And that includes politicians. Three strikes and they're out of office permanently.

The FCC should just stay out of the censoring business and just manage the RF spectrum. Look at the Howard Stern show. Why was he not allowed to talk about sexual topics that Oprah was allowed to talk about? The rules were not clear, and were selectively enforced because the guy at the top didn't like him. Why was Janet Jackson's boob accidentally popping out such a big deal for the FCC? Putting the FCC in the classroom is the worst possible idea ever.

Right now every MSM channel in US is pushing Iran war, it's not even a question that the political mind is made up, the MSM system is in all gears to push that nonsense (and of-course US has a 'standing army', so there is nothing really that Congress or POTUS need to do to run that war, there is no need to search for more money, it's all already 'budgeted in'.)

But how do you start, how do you create this insane mind control over the population? Well, you start young. You start with small type of censorship and then you go from there. Thus my previous comment [slashdot.org] (that was moded 'funny' but also a 'troll' as well) stands.

Contracts allow for downsizing and layoffs due to budget cuts is entirely different. Even tenured professors can be laid off due to budget cuts. Getting fired from a job means you specifically violated your contract or simply aren't performing well, firing for which is something that is near impossible to get away with in many school districts (Case in point: Until recently, New York City's "rubber room", Reason's flow chart of the process [reason.com] or Google preview [google.com], see also, Washington, DC).

Tenure is there largely to protect educators' ability to teach effectively.

While there are downsides to the system, the upshot is we have teachers who are partially shielded from political or cultural sway so they can decide a curriculum based on reason rather than the popular flavor of the season.

You can talk about introducing a merit based system, but all this will do is create a popularity contest where effectiveness is measured by how well an educator can mimic whatever is currently in vogue.

Having survived many layoffs I will tell you that this is incorrect. Layoffs are a way to release a person, for any reason, without having to follow the usual guidelines for termination. This allows companies to not document wrong doings, and to let people go for personal reasons. It is usually done under the guise of resource reduction, but in many cases those laid off employees are replaced with in a years time.

Being "laid off" is what happens when an employee is dismissed ostensibly because they are surplus to requirements and is commonly called "being made redundant" where I'm from (compared with "being sacked").

Having lived in Arizona before I moved to Idaho...every time I hear about stuff like this from Arizona/Oklahoma/Mississippi I almost give myself a concussion when slapping my forehead. The only difference seems to be Arizona seems to using a warp powered star ship aimed toward the ground at warp 100 on their way to hit the bottom of the pile the fastest.

If these "legislators" enact this BS...they are also public employees. When they are forced to live their lives by the same shackles as they are putting

I keep telling you people, the federal government has no business in public education, the local and state government. As stupid as this bill seems, the next "logical" step would be for Obama to force it on the rest of the nation.

You think it is "logical" that Obama is just itching to pass a federal version of a state decency law written by a bunch of conservative Republicans? That word, "logical", I do not think it means what you think it means.

Keeping all education local would prevent this stupidity from leaving Arizona's borders.

That sure worked with local control of science standards and creationism, didn't it?

RTFS, it is a state bill, not federal. Trying to use the FCC standard not put the FCC into the school. Looks like the Arizona reps are ceding classroom decorum standards to the state, how's them apples.

RTFS, it is a state bill, not federal. Trying to use the FCC standard not put the FCC into the school. Looks like the Arizona reps are ceding classroom decorum standards to the state, how's them apples.

You are using the "F" letter in an inappropriate way - you are being watched!

If you actual would bother to read my post, I know it is a state statute. I said as much. The problem is that it gives ideas to to the fed, which could impose the same standard on other states, including states that don't want it, or they don't get their "education funding". That is the complaint. Let Arizona do something stupid, that is fine, the problem is that many fed programs (Obama care, for instance) started out as state programs, and the fed comes in and pushed it down everyone's gullet. This i

Yeah the later part of your post implies you know it is a state statute but you led off with saying keep the fed out of public education, implying that this was the feds idea. Why not lead off criticizing the idiots that think this is a good idea.

-:) it doesn't. It helps the authorities with an early start of conditioning people into believing that what government authority (and any kind of authority) tells them is the truth.

It's not about 'fuck' and all the other Carlin's favourites, it's about "Iraq was tied to Al Qaeda", "Hussein tied to 9/11", "Iran has nuclear weapons", "Iran is a threat to USA". It's about "Income taxes on the rich improve the economy". It's about "Income equality is government's mandate". It's about "Paper currency is money". It's about "Bailouts are necessary to save the economy".

These words are often used because they are unable to come with the proper vocabulary word of the time. Shows when someone is being more emotional then thoughtful.
Also pedafiles tend to use such language to get kids attracted to them.

I can see that you have "come with the proper vocabulary word of the time." Perhaps before commenting on the use of language, you should learn how to write it first. Swearing and cursing are entirely appropriate in certain situations and admittedly your point (once I deciphered it) has some merit, apart from the part about 'pedafiles'.

... it's hard to know where to even start. But possibly the absolute worst is at the end of Paragraph B:

B. For the purposes of this section, "public school" means a public preschool program, a public elementary school, a public junior high school, a public middle school, a public high school, a public vocational education program, a public community college or a public university in this state.

(emphasis mine)

For K-12 teachers, okay, I can kind of see this, although the penalties seem Draconian and I'm willing to bet that they already have in-school codes of conducts that prohibit swearing in the classroom. But are they actually saying that this is going to apply to professors in a classroom full of people who are legally adults? To discussions of literature containing the word "fuck"? To research faculty in their labs? Seriously?

Apparently the bill's sponsor, Lori Klein, showed off her gun by aiming it at a reporter [huffingtonpost.com] a while back. That tells you everything you need to know about the mentality of the people behind this. They're completely insane. Um, apeshit, if you will. And they're growing in power all over the country.

Indeed... it would seem that this law would make most courses in modern literature null and void. If the teacher can't say the words, then certainly it follows that the curriculum cannot contain books which contain the words. This would also seem to prohibit all anatomy, sexual/gender studies, much of biology, most of film studies, etc etc...

I'm kind of curious where the impetus for this is coming from. Is Arizona suffering from a rash of swearing teachers? Are children all across the state going home and saying "Hey Mommy, my English teacher said the guy she picked up in the bar last night fucked her good, and we were all like 'No Ms. Jones, he fucked you well!"

It's actually very difficult to fire a public school teacher in the US. Take, for example, the case of Freshwater. Not only did he repeatly ignore the curriculum, but he used his position as a teacher to preach his religious views to the class, and then *repeatly burned students*. Yes, he actually branded them. Used the science equipment to physically injure them. You might think that if a teacher does that he'd be fired on the spot, but it actually took months of paperwork and reviews to get him fired - and then he appealed it in a legal battle that cost the school millions of dollars.

I picked him out because he should be well-known to the slashdot crowd, but this isn't a liberal-vs-conservative thing. There are plenty of teachers from both sides who like to use their position to advance their own agenda (It's why some of them become reachers) and a lot who are simply incompetant. They are just very difficult and very expensive to get rid of. Teachers have some very powerful unions, and have used that power to achieve incredible job security.

So think.. what would schools really like to help manage their teachers? How about some rule that is hard to obey, ideally so convoluted that you'd need a lawyer just to work out what it permits, and for which offenders can be promply sacked? The FCC standards are ideal. Hard to even figure out, and it only takes a momentary lapse of thought to violate them. The law appears to have no right of appeal, no board review. It's just written for selective enforcement. If the management wants to continue employing a teacher, they can just turn a blind eye to the occasional bit of mild profanity... but if they want rid of a teacher, all they need to do is wait. When the rules are so difficult to follow, everyone will slip up sooner or later. Indecency becomes the perfect excuse.

Exactly what that results in would just depend on the school. It might be used as a quick-and-sneaky way to fire inept teachers without having to go through years of reviews and appeals, which is good. But equally it might be used for ideological clensing, so management can more easily stock the school with a staff who will indoctrinate the students into their own political agenda.

That is an idiotic example. Hurting students or otherwise inappropriately taking advantage of them leads to a fine or prison.This is a level where the school need not and _should_ not be involved, criminal prosecution is none of their business.And I really doubt it is hard to fire someone who is in prison and can't come to work.Also that the court process cost "millions of dollars" has nothing to do with teachers but only with a completely and thoroughly dysfunctional US court system, which basically tried to find anything that could be done wrong and then implemented it.

In Freshwater's case, none of the student's he burned or their families agreed to press charges. One of them did sue Freshwater for damages, but the case was settled out of court for undisclosed terms. He was suspended in 2008, but it took two years to actually get him fired - for all of which he was comfortably doing nothing at all and still getting full pay for it.

That is how hard it is to get a teacher fired. Even if one goes so far as to burn students (admitidly volunteers) with a high voltage generato

I'm not defending the guy, but it seems quite telling that none of the students or families wanted to press charges. If some asshole burned my kid with a crucifix I sure as hell would press charges. Something else was going on there. I guarantee if my high school physics teacher had caused physical harm to anyone, she would have been in jail by sundown.

Except that Freshwater was immediately suspended without pay following the allegations, which is as good as firing, until the hearing was completed. The length it took had to do with the very difficult to prove allegations. The fact that most parents weren't willing to press charges is one of the reasons it was so difficult to fire him. Not only that but some of the more extreme examples from the case like the burning were almost impossible to prove as the student who claimed it was never allowed to be p

I had a super liberal social studies teacher who, through pushing her ultra liberal agenda, actually got through to groups of rowdy rowdy students and taught us why it's important to know geography, multiculturalism and respecting others.

Freshwater was nutty, even by Pentecostal standards. Even so, he wasn't short on support. The cross burning thing had a somewhat limiting effect on his support. The people coming out strong for Freshman were the fringe wingnuts.

Religion does indeed complicate this. While Freshwater and his fellow fundies have no regard for the constitutional protections for faith and lack thereof, the state must do things by the book. That will unfortunately lead to delays, and having to entertain spurious legal challenges.

Quite likely. From what I read at the time, there was a lot of quite hostile dispute within the student population between those who believed Freshwater had overstepped the bounds by preaching in class and the devout Christian faction of the student body who believed he he was preaching as the Lord commended. I never read of any incidents of violence, but there were claims of defaced lockers, torn-up workbooks and intimidation. All the common bullying tactics as each side did their best to drive the other i

"If a person who provides classroom instruction in a public school engages in speech or conduct that would violate the standards..."
The way this is worded makes it sound as if public school teachers risk being fired for violating FCC standards at any time -- even outside of the classroom, away from school or at home.
Like, they could fire you for cussing at the bar after work, or stepping out to grab your paper without making sure all your bits were properly covered.

"Decency" is a subjective thing. What's not decent in the US, may be perfectly decent, or even boring, in most EU countries. What's not decent in the US, like showing a nipple, is prime time TV in the Netherlands. I want my kids to have a free mind and a fair amount of knowledge about sex, so they don't get a girl pregnant and they don't catch diseases. Puritanism causes teen pregnancies, so let's not introduce this bs into the class room. It's bad enough as it is.

I can only guess that teachers in Arizona are not in the habit of ripping off nipple shields... so what is this really guarding against? Bad language? Most teachers have to look up the curse words of kids.

No, this isn't about teachers mis-behaving. This is about art, sexual education and the "wrong" kind of books. There are plenty of parents who want to sanitize all education so that little Timmy doesn't learn anything that might upset his parents and this is the way to do it. Don't bother banning books, art or subjects, simply say that undecent things are not allowed and then watch teachers censor themselves to not loose their jobs.

...the mines and the teachers. This is a swift kick to the latter's. Unions are only as strong as their cash boxes are deep. Force the Arizona teacher's unions to start defending members in court against something as wide open to interpretation as FCC decency standards, and that will drain the cashbox very quickly. A brilliant tactic on the part of the union busters; Arizona has long been a "right-to-work" state (read: anti-union) and this will effectively take the teacher's union out of the game if it gets through the legislature.

One of the best teachers I ever had called a student a dumbass once, as a joke. I like to think that I came out alright, nobody took it seriously. The country didn't devolve into horrible uncivilized masses, the Earth didn't fall into the sun, the universe didn't implode. It's not like students don't here a lot worse things at lunch anyway. Who are we really protecting, and to what extent? To the extent that it requires legislation?
I think not.

And I say that as a Republican. Just recently we had a group of them go after our University funding, claiming that if tuition is higher then the students will benefit because they'll value their educations more. The moron pushing this had a degree from the University of Pheonix.

They all get elected on a mix of religious social issues and their oppositions refusal to admit that illegal immigration is a problem(even though Arizona is now the kidnapping capital of the country and there are entire sections of

Literature, even classic literature contains profanity, sex, and violence that would make the FCC rules nazis cringe. Does it really make sense to limit a child's education by omitting it? Figures though, schools in America are already among the worst in the world. Why not go just that little extra distance to seal that worst in the world title?

The probably don't have a lot of experience with this education thing. Change can be unsettling; they're probably uncertain what goes on in these new-fangled "classrooms". Under the circumstances it's quite understandable that they'd turn to the comfort of something more familiar to them, like broadcast television.

I think the cat will do it to the pooch when the courtsforce the FCC to scrap it's standards. The only thingfunnier was a company that requires employees to abideby the Geneva Conventions... I asked for a copy... anddid not get one.